Open Letter and Plea to Eagle Dynamics (range of max. LoD)

[Hiob]

Hello Creators, 

I'd wish to bring a topic to your attention that bugs me tremendously, even though I'm usually not easily bugged by this kind of stuff.

That topic is the Bubble of maximum LoD around the player. There is this area/bubble around the player (estimated 150-300 m wide) where you see maximum details, including but not limited to: Details on buildings, Satellite Dishes, Detailed Fences, Ground Clutter etc.....

I get why this zone of maximum detail is limited (performance obviously) and it usually isn't a problem when you fly Jets or even Warbirds for that matter - because you are way to high and way to fast anyway to notice any of this stuff in the first place. And when you are taxiing around, your pov is so low, that you can't see very far in the first place.

!!! HOWEVER - this completely flips when flying helicopters. With typical helicopter operations being low and rather slow in comparison, the "wave" of LoD pop-in's of the aforementioned Details/Clutter is squarley right in the midst of where you're looking. In the worst case, flying over a dense city you're literally "riding the wave"! (the lovely datailed urban areas in the latest maps only exacerbate the problem). !!!

There is always a compromise to be made between best looks and best performance - totally clear - and thankfully we have a wide range of gfx features we can adjust to our hardware and priorities. Even when there isn't a game settings option to tune DCS individually, there is often some more or less hidden .lua file that can be modified by the great modding community of DCS to make things happen.

Unfortunately not in this case. There is neither a build-in adjustable setting for this, nor has anybody (including me) been able to find some inofficial mod that helps.

Personally I would happily change some maximum viewing distance for improvements in the very near to midst viewing ranges. At least there should be the option to do so. Hardware has become vastly more powerful (even though it can still be brought to its knees), and I think it should be allowed to the users to balance their needs.

To be clear, I'm assuming that this is just some parameter that is already in the game and only needs to be made available to be controlled by the player. I'm not asking for a rewrite of the graphics engine. In the latter case, there's obviously higher priority stuff.

And I'm also not suggesting to force some hardware hogging feature on players that aren't so fortunate to own the latest top tier GPU.

I'm just kindly asking for the opportunity to make that adjustment/decision individually!

THANK YOU!

@BIGNEWY

@NineLine

[MAXsenna]

I second this! It's extremely irritating having bushes and stones popping out of nowhere a few meters in front of you. And the building details. Oh my!


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[Snoopy]

8 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

I second this! It's extremely irritating having bushes and stones popping out of nowhere a few meters in front of you. And the building details. Oh my!


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Impacts looking through the TGP as well would be nice at least to have buildings and vegetation appear in the TGP and not magically pop up as you get closer as well.

[bandit648]

I agree with Hiob! I don't think it's too much to ask. I have a high-end system with a 4090, and I run DCS in flatscreen at 4K resolution. Even with view distance at Extreme and other options maxed my GPU typically runs between 20-30% utilization.

If I crank up the view distance much higher through the graphics.lua I can get GPU utilization up to 70% and DCS looks so much better. However, that does nothing for the short range pop-in of ground objects, etc. 

The ED team has done a wonderful job improving performance in DCS. We just need some better options to tune the graphics settings to our needs. I want my DCS to look its best! 

 

[BIGNEWY]

4 hours ago, Hiob said:

Hello Creators, 

I'd wish to bring a topic to your attention that bugs me tremendously, even though I'm usually not easily bugged by this kind of stuff.

That topic is the Bubble of maximum LoD around the player. There is this area/bubble around the player (estimated 150-300 m wide) where you see maximum details, including but not limited to: Details on buildings, Satellite Dishes, Detailed Fences, Ground Clutter etc.....

I get why this zone of maximum detail is limited (performance obviously) and it usually isn't a problem when you fly Jets or even Warbirds for that matter - because you are way to high and way to fast anyway to notice any of this stuff in the first place. And when you are taxiing around, your pov is so low, that you can't see very far in the first place.

!!! HOWEVER - this completely flips when flying helicopters. With typical helicopter operations being low and rather slow in comparison, the "wave" of LoD pop-in's of the aforementioned Details/Clutter is squarley right in the midst of where you're looking. In the worst case, flying over a dense city you're literally "riding the wave"! (the lovely datailed urban areas in the latest maps only exacerbate the problem). !!!

There is always a compromise to be made between best looks and best performance - totally clear - and thankfully we have a wide range of gfx features we can adjust to our hardware and priorities. Even when there isn't a game settings option to tune DCS individually, there is often some more or less hidden .lua file that can be modified by the great modding community of DCS to make things happen.

Unfortunately not in this case. There is neither a build-in adjustable setting for this, nor has anybody (including me) been able to find some inofficial mod that helps.

Personally I would happily change some maximum viewing distance for improvements in the very near to midst viewing ranges. At least there should be the option to do so. Hardware has become vastly more powerful (even though it can still be brought to its knees), and I think it should be allowed to the users to balance their needs.

To be clear, I'm assuming that this is just some parameter that is already in the game and only needs to be made available to be controlled by the player. I'm not asking for a rewrite of the graphics engine. In the latter case, there's obviously higher priority stuff.

And I'm also not suggesting to force some hardware hogging feature on players that aren't so fortunate to own the latest top tier GPU.

I'm just kindly asking for the opportunity to make that adjustment/decision individually!

THANK YOU!

@BIGNEWY

@NineLine

Hi Hiob, 

can you take a screenshot of your dcs settings page, and maybe add a track and video showing what you are seeing. 

Obviously we have the LOD switch factor slider for distance stuff, and the individual sliders for ground clutter, trees ect, we can take a look at your settings and see if we can improve it anywhere. Or create some feedback / data for the team. 

thank you 

[Hiob]

Hi @BIGNEWY,

thank you for engaging in this topic. I will try to make a video and/or screenshots asap.

But basically all my GFX settings are maxed out. But that is rather unimportant since the small bubble of maximum LoD is always the same, regardless of all other settings. And as much as I can tell the LoD switch factor doesn’t do anything in this regard (it is maxed out anyway).

Nevertheless I will do anything to make this topic gain traction. As soon as I‘m sitting on my PC, I will provide more data.

In the mean time, if you like, just hop into a Gazelle start from Haifa in the late Afternoon, and enjoy a nice treetop level flight around the airport and have a look 100 to 200m in front of you.

Thank You!

Edited March 27 by Hiob

[freehand]

Pop ups have been a thing since lock on days.

[Hiob]

6 minutes ago, freehand said:

Pop ups have been a thing since lock on days.

I think, to a certain degree, this is unavoidable in a Flightsim due to the long unobstructed viewing distances. The specific problem here is, that the front of pop-in details rolls right in the center of your pov and destroys immersion (at least for me).

[Hiob]

1 hour ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hi Hiob, 

can you take a screenshot of your dcs settings page, and maybe add a track and video showing what you are seeing.

Here you go,

I'm not exactly happy with my examples here - as always when you want to show someone, it kind of fails to really pop into the eye. However it can be seen. Most noticeable are the "running fences" (on all maps), shadow details and the satellite dishes in Sinai..... but it is all the same phenomenon.

If someone could help me out with even better examples - would be highly appreciated!

(The video is scaled down for size, look at the "front line" of satellite dishes)

p.s. for the purpose of this, I removed all mods and created a "virgin" savegames folder. But it doesn't change anything to my usual setup.

 

Gizeh Showcase.trk Haifa Showcase.trk

Edited March 27 by Hiob

[freehand]

The fence crawl must admit is very off putting & more so in VR.

[MadKreator]

I’m 100% for this as well. If you fly the f16 low ( since there’s no canopy bow) you can really notice a definitive hardline where things come into full resolution. I too have tried to find a way to extend this, to no avail.

[average_pilot]

16 hours ago, freehand said:

The fence crawl must admit is very off putting & more so in VR.

Oh yes, totally agree!

I think it could be somewhat alleviated making the those two adjacent LoD of the airbase walls more alike.

[BIGNEWY]

16 hours ago, Hiob said:

Here you go,

I'm not exactly happy with my examples here - as always when you want to show someone, it kind of fails to really pop into the eye. However it can be seen. Most noticeable are the "running fences" (on all maps), shadow details and the satellite dishes in Sinai..... but it is all the same phenomenon.

If someone could help me out with even better examples - would be highly appreciated!

(The video is scaled down for size, look at the "front line" of satellite dishes)

p.s. for the purpose of this, I removed all mods and created a "virgin" savegames folder. But it doesn't change anything to my usual setup.

 

 

Gizeh Showcase.trk 399.62 kB · 4 downloads Haifa Showcase.trk 745.48 kB · 3 downloads

 

thank you for the examples I will mention it to the team 

[Hiob]

TY, much appreciated!

Edited March 28 by Hiob

[Hotdognz]

Thanks for bringing this up, it's really off putting in helo ops

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